Friends V. Associates (the relief of knowing )

 

                The personal, social and moral obligations between friends are different than those of people who aren’t. When I realized this, a lot of stress left my life. Friendships come with a social contract to be aware of one another’s feelings on a more personal level; whereas acquaintances fall under a regional environmental contract, (be polite, follow the ten commandments, etc) of the area a group of people live in. You wouldn’t invite the guy that stands outside with a change cup to help you move, even if you’ve given him a dollar every time you saw him for the past ten years. You may know his name and why he’s begging but that doesn’t make you friends. Also you wouldn’t just keep driving if you saw your best friend since third grade broken down on the side of the road.

                Shortly after I moved back to Anniston I ran for public office, I didn’t win that race but it did establish me as a man of a curtain character. During that race I meet someone and we began to hang out, we even traveled together to events and such. We both started our own talk show, he started one while I was running for office, my campaign attorney encouraged me to start one after elections were over; so I did. I remember, at the end of my show I would tell the viewers to stay tuned for his show and one other. Unfortunately I never got a chance to see his show because of the amount of work I was putting into my show, so I never got to see his show and how close our formats were.

After knowing him a few years I encouraged him to run for a public office, and he did. We both ran for public office that next term and we were both elected. Almost immediately after we were elected this guy not only cut off all communications with me, but actually attempted to undermine many of my efforts. This caused me great anguish and stress. I remember getting almost enraged trying to deal with him. I didn’t understand “friends don’t do this to each other” was what I kept saying. Years later, he finally told me ‘I never liked you.’ He went on to tell me that he had no problem with any of the things he had done to hurt my efforts because he was upset that I also started a talk show. Apparently he believed that ‘I wanted to be like him because I started a television show,’ even though I was already in the community working and doing public speaking engagements. It was only natural that I would start some kind of talk show, radio or television.

‘I never liked you.’ At first those words stung a little and then relief took over me such as I had not experienced since we had both began running for office. I realized that although I was his friend, he had never been my friend. I was simply someone that he wanted to keep a close eye on. I always wondered why I did so much to further his career and he had never done a single thing to help me in mine. I remember telling him when someone was interested in donating to his campaign, and he never once gave me one of those calls. I even had some of my supporters tell me that he had gone to them and told them that I sent him ask them to give any support that they intended to give me to him instead.

When I realized we weren’t friends I began to see things differently. Everything I had done for him because we were friends, I began to see a simply a gift to help someone out. Even though we were close for over four years, we were never friends. This I had to learn; and it made me a better person. There are people that will come into our lives that aren’t friends. For example; you could work with a person in the same company for years; the two of you could eat lunch together and go to company related events, but when it’s time to compete for a big promotion it is expected for you to outpitch each other.

Simply spending time with a person doesn’t make them your friend, and this I had to learn. My personality causes me to befriend people easily.  I’m not naturally competitive; I grew up being part of groups like marching band, jazz band, step groups and such which are set up so that everyone wins together. This causes me to have the mentality of “the better you do, the better I do,” which makes me want to help others achieve their goals. The “me against you” way of thinking was something I never really gravitated towards.

I needed this lesson in life so that I can become a better leader, so for this I am grateful. I see life in a whole new light now, because I’m ok with not being a friend with all of my acquaintances. I suspect that when this individual needs me again to forward his personal agenda that he will reach out to me. If or most likely when that day comes I will be able to deal with him from a new understanding. At the end of the day I suppose that my goal of helping as many people in this world be whatever they want to be is the most important thing to any and all of my relationships. I also realize that there are people in this world that I will never be friends with, and I’m ok with that.